The Golden State Valkyries went 3-0 against the Dallas Wings this season, their first-round playoff opponent.
All the ways Golden State tamped down a team that boasts star guard Paige Bueckers will be the same ways it can wield its league-best defense in a three-game series that begins Sunday night at 6 p.m. at Chase Center.
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Dallas’ secondary scorers pose such a threat that limiting Bueckers alone won’t necessarily be sufficient to take the series.
The Wings under head coach Jose Fernandez operate an offense built around movement, getting Bueckers involved in both on- and off-ball actions. When Bueckers isn’t in position to score, she can create for Jessica Shepard and Arike Ogunbowale, who are averaging 14.5 and 15.3 points per game, respectively.
Golden State’s path to limiting those secondary scorers runs through Bueckers, not necessarily just by controlling her as a scorer, but as a facilitator and playmaker.
That’s where the Valkyries’ stellar point-of-attack defense comes into play. Driven by Veronica Burton and Gabby Williams – along with Kaitlyn Chen, Tiffany Hayes and Kaila Charles providing perimeter defense – Golden State applies pressure on the ball while switchable defenders away from it disrupt passing and driving lanes.
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That pressure, combined with center Kiah Stokes‘ rim protection behind it, gives Golden State layers with which to disrupt an action. In theory, that allows the Valkyries to pressure Bueckers without consistently pulling help defenders away from Dallas’ other scoring threats and potentially creating clean looks elsewhere.
That appeared to be a common theme in these two teams’ matchups. Golden State’s pressure made Bueckers less efficient as a scorer and, perhaps more importantly, less productive as a creator.
This season, Bueckers has recorded a 60.4% true shooting percentage and 30.5% assist percentage. Against Golden State, her true shooting percentage dropped to 54.9%, while she averaged 4.0 assists and 3.7 turnovers per game.
In their Aug. 17 matchup, Bueckers scored 21 points but needed 18 shots to do it, finishing with three assists, seven turnovers and just one 3-pointer on five attempts.
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After sweeping the regular season series against Dallas, Burton put to rest the notion that the Valkyries defense completely shut down the Wings’ scorers, but instead suffocated it by stifling the ballhandlers – they’ve been excellent at fighting through screens – with Stokes protecting the rim.
That type of Bueckers output may be a tradeoff the Valkyries can live with in a playoff series if it means preventing her scoring from also creating efficient opportunities for Dallas’ secondary threats.
But Bueckers’ valves are scary if they get a little space and motion, particularly Shepard. The All-Star forward is having a breakout season in her first year with the Wings, doubling her output compared to her previous seasons with the Minnesota Lynx. She’s shooting 58.8% from the field on 10 attempts while averaging 5.3 assists per game.
The regular season comes into play in any playoff series, but familiarity changes the dynamic into a game of chess between coaching staffs.
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Valkyries’ concern: Golden State is built to contain superstars on a nightly basis, but do they have enough juice to survive a playoff series without a superstar scorer of their own?
Dallas is an offense-first team, but their defense is also solid. They boast a 106.4 defensive rating, sixth best in the league.
Against any defense, the Valkyries are out to prove that you don’t need a typical superstar scorer to beat the lot.
That’s not to say that Gabby Williams, an All-Star starter, premier defender and team’s high scorer, is not a star. In playoff terms, “star” quality just means a high-volume shot creator who can get a bucket when opposing defenses blow up the offense or the shot clock is winding down.
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Such as the Las Vegas Aces‘ A’ja Wilson, New York’s Breanna Stewart, Indiana‘s Caitlin Clark and Bueckers, for example.
When the stakes are high and opportunities are running low, sometimes what separates winners from runners-up are players who take over and win a game themselves.
The Valkyries have players who can be that.
Burton has proven that she can step into an aggressor role, becoming the leader who calls her own number when the team needs to stay afloat.
Williams is their leading scorer, the player with the most playoff experience who can come off the bench a little cold and turn up the game-changing plays on both sides of the ball – as she did in Thursday’s win against the Los Angeles Sparks.
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Janelle Salaün and Cecilia Zandalasini have the difficult shot-making chops to emerge as possible separators.
The Valkyries win without a statistically awesome offense. Their 108.2 offensive rating is eighth best in the league and second lowest among playoff teams. (The Washington Mystics are below them with a 104.6 offensive rating.)
Their win against the Sparks on Thursday provided the blueprint for how they beat teams as a collective.
“Things aren’t always going to go our way. And we can’t just put our head down and pout,” Chen said. “I thought we did a great job of just sticking with it and we knew we weren’t going to win it in one miraculous play. We just took it one play at a time and we really fought hard tonight, and we’re definitely going to need that in the playoffs.”
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Expect Williams and Burton to be the central figures of this run, But every playoff run has its unexpected or quietly essential player emerge.
Rookie Juste Jocyte could be an off-the-bench shooter who jump-starts the offense, a wild card.
She’s played little in head coach Natalie Nakase’s rotation this year, so there’s no guarantee that she’ll get minutes. The Lithuanian forward has been in and out of the mix, averaging 8 minutes per game in 16 games, but she’s hit her shots, especially from 3, when called on.
Her shooting provides Nakase an option off the bench to change the offensive pace. She’s averaging 1.6 attempts from 3 per game and hitting them 42% of the time; the best example of her impact came last week when she went 3-for-3 from 3 against the Seattle Storm off the bench.
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Then there’s Chen. She’s not only leaped from fringe player and roster uncertainty to reliable backup to Burton, but evolved as someone who can change the offensive pace while challenging defenses going downhill.
Chen is averaging 7.2 points per game, but her impact as a scorer shows itself game-to-game. The guard is decisive with the ball. She will turn on the jets when the team needs her – she’s collected 15 double-digit scoring games, including 18 in the regular season finale against the Los Angeles Sparks to rally a fourth-quarter comeback.
Nakase calls Stokes their anchor on defense, and she may quietly be the most important part of their defense. The Valkyries’ on-ball defense can thrive because Stokes is holding down the fort at the rim, ready if and when a perimeter defender is beaten.
Stokes cleans up. She’s set franchise records with 248 rebounds and 74 blocks, averaging 5.6 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game.
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In the same way she was the league’s most impactful bench player, Salaün could be the biggest X-factor.
Salaün set the WNBA record for points scored by a bench player, up to 509 over 40 regular season games while averaging 22.1 minutes per game. Plus, she’s their most impactful scorer aside from Williams and perhaps their top shooter from long range at 39.2%.
That’s not a bad option to have off the bench.
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This article originally published at Valkyries-Wings playoff preview: Golden State faces risk despite sweeping season series.
